


The Homecoming of Raoul Pontmercy

by cœurdunerebelle (notjustalittlegirl)



Series: Raoul Pontmercy [2]
Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Parent-Child Relationship, Raoul Pontmercy, Raoul is Marius and Cosette's son, Reunions, also I made Musichetta Christine's mum, because why the heck not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2016-12-05
Packaged: 2018-09-06 18:48:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8764777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notjustalittlegirl/pseuds/c%C5%93urdunerebelle
Summary: Minutes after the events of the Phantom of the Opera, Raoul and Christine stand outside the Opéra Populaire in shock. Raoul sees a familiar-looking couple emerging from the burning opera house, and cannot believe his eyes. In other words, Raoul is reunited with his parents, Marius and Cosette.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Plot bunny from all the way back when I first watched The Phantom of the Opera. The timelines lined up, so I said why not.  
> So, in this, I made Raoul the estranged son of Marius and Cosette, and it randomly popped into my head to make Musichetta Christine's mother. So, this happened. So, I need to stop using the word "so." 
> 
> I put Marius as around 57, and Cosette about 53 (after doing some math). 
> 
> I don't own The Phantom of the Opera or Les Misérables, and I am making no money from this, so please don't sue me!
> 
> Anyways, enjoy my plot bunny!

Finally,  _finally,_ they were out of that blasted opera house. Oh, how wonderful it felt to breathe the free air again, even if that air was too tainted by the smoke billowing from the Opéra Populaire. Still in her tattered wedding dress, Christine was shaking apart in his arms as she waited for Meg and Madame Giry to find her again. Raoul stroked her hair in what he hoped was a comforting way as they stood together, watching the people gather. 

Two people in particular caught Raoul's exhausted eyes as they stumbled together from the opera house, holding each other for support. His hand automatically stilled and tightened in Christine's hair as he blinked once, twice, several times, in an attempt to banish what he knew was a gross delusion.  _They_ would never come to a grandiose place like this, a place where only the obscenely wealthy showed their faces. 

The couple was middle-aged, and the man was beginning to go bald on the top, his ginger hair thinner than Raoul remembered. His wife's own hair had streaks of grey through it, popping out like fireworks against the light brown. 

He turned his attention back to Christine, pulling her along to sit on a bench several hundred feet from the building, the closest one that was unoccupied. When he looked up again, the couple was not vanished into the crowd as he thought they would be if they were indeed a dream. Quite the contrary in fact, they had paused in the middle of the street and were staring at him with just as much shock and apprehension as he was sure must be present on his own face. 

There was no mistaking them now. Even if it had been five years since they had last set eyes on each other, Raoul could never forget the sight of his parents. He locked eyes with his mother, who broke away from his father's supporting grasp and virtually  _flew_ towards him. 

Raoul kept one stiff hand on Christine's trembling arm as he stood to meet her. Cosette wrapped her arms around him and squeezed tightly, as if trying to make up for the five years since she had last been able to hold her son. He used his free arm to hug her back, wondering at the miracle of being with his mother again.

When Cosette finally broke the hug, after what must have been at least a minute, she clasped his face in her hands, calloused from age and her rough childhood, and kissed both his cheeks several times.

"Oh my god, oh my god! Raoul! I didn't think you wanted to see us, but then I heard that you were here and I just couldn't help coming, I had to see you and make sure you were alright, and then... Oh my god, baby, are you okay?" 

He nodded, giving his mother another one-armed hug. Then he noticed that his father was standing there, having made his way over far slower than his wife. 

"Father, I'm-" 

Marius cut him off with a hug so bone-crushing it rivaled the one Cosette had given him a moment prior. 

"It's okay, baby. It's okay. I'm so glad you're safe," Marius whispered into his son's hair.  

Raoul finally, reluctantly, let go of his Christine and wrapped his unknowingly shaking arms back around his father. Marius kissed his hair again and again, then his cheeks. 

"Mama, Papa, I'm sorry for leaving you. I know there's no excuse for it, for leaving and then simply expecting you to send me money, but I hope you'll forgive me. God, you gave me a bank account, it must have had two-thirds of your money in it, enough to patronize this damned opera, but I didn't come home! I didn't even say thank you!" 

Marius and Cosette had each inherited a large sum of money, Marius from his grandfather when he died and Cosette from her Papa. They would never have dreamed of using it for themselves, though. They stayed in Marius' grandfather's home and, in the memory of their fallen friends and their past, did extensive charity work and gave everything they had to the poor. 

Raoul, when he was younger, hadn't understood his parents' mentality. They had tried to raise him well, into their lifestyle of love, care, and generosity, but when he had gotten older, he had wanted to, as he told his parents, "live his life as he was meant to." 

He hadn't wanted to be Raoul Pontmercy, son of the Paris Angels. He had wanted to be Raoul, the wealthy viscount that he thought he was entitled to be. De Chagny had been an old name in the family, so he had adopted it for his own. 

Now, after the events at the Opéra Populaire, he wanted nothing more than to be his parents' baby again. 

"I'm sorry," he whispered again.

"No, baby," cooed Cosette. "Don't apologize. It's alright. We forgave you a long time ago." 

Raoul looked at his father, and Marius' eyes reflected the same sentiment as Cosette's.  _It's okay. I love you._

Christine whimpered quietly on the bench, and Raoul could tell that she had been holding back how afraid and caught up in trauma she still was. He reluctantly broke free of his parents' arms and, wishing that he had three arms to hold all of them, wrapped himself back around Christine. 

"Mama, Papa," he said. "Do you recall Christine Daaé?" 

"Gustave's daughter? Little Lotte?" Cosette sat down next to Christine as the younger nodded weakly, and wrapped her arm around the girl she had known as a child. 

"Oh my goodness," Cosette said. "Look at you, you are so beautiful. I heard you sing, and it sounded as beautiful as you've grown to be, darling. Oh, if Musichetta and Gustave could see you now... They would be so proud of you, Christine." 

Raoul saw the flicker of pain behind Christine's eyes at the mention of her dead parents, along with the momentary happiness at hearing from someone who had known them well that they would be proud of the woman she had become. The pain lasted longer, though. Raoul knew that it still hurt Christine to know that her Angel of Music was not her father, but rather a devil who had turned out to have some angel in him after all.

Christine sobbed softly, and Cosette's motherly instinct instantly took over and she pulled the young soprano up from the bench and guided an arm around her shoulder. "Come along, darling. I think we ought to go home and get you to bed. It's been quite a day." 

Christine leaned into the older woman, head on Cosette's shoulder, while still holding tight to Raoul's hand. Cosette took over the stroking of Christine's hair using the hand not holding her up, and they walked as a small blob of people down the road, Marius' gentle hand on his son's shoulder. 

"Rue Plumet is closer than grandfather's house, shall we go there?"

"Of course, I knew holding onto that old house would come in handy someday. Come along, Christine, it isn't that far." 

Christine nodded into Cosette's shoulder as they walked towards the latter's house from her teenage years. 

* * *

"Mama," whispered Raoul when the party was settled in Rue Plumet in front of the fire built by Marius to drive away some of the draft, and Cosette had dug up an old rag to dust off beds for everyone. "Christine and I are engaged."

She smiled brilliantly, in the way that Raoul remembered from when he had done something as a child that he was particularly proud of, before telling him that she was proud too. 

"That's wonderful, darling! Congratulations!"

Marius, from where he stood in the doorway, having been re-entering the room when Raoul announced his engagement, spoke softly. 

"It looks like our family is not only complete again, but expanding. Welcome home, my children." 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


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